Philosophy

Over the last few years, I have actually become somewhat of a fan of Alex O’Connor. Many readers will remember the teenage "Cosmic Skeptic" who exploded onto YouTube years ago. While I appreciated his intelligence and willingness to engage difficult ideas, I often found him unnecessarily abrasive and overly confident. But Alex has matured considerably over time. He has become more thoughtful, more nuanced, and more willing to admit complexity where complexity exists. In a wor

Lately I’ve noticed that Scripture is full of unexpected reversals — moments where God works in ways that overturn human expectations. Then, after reflecting more deeply on the biblical narrative and listened to my son, Dr. Tim Stratton, teach on Molinism (see his new book, the second edition of Human Freedom, Divine Knowledge, and Mere Molinism), something came into focus for me in a new way. It began with a simple realization: God is far more surprising than we often admit.

By Dr.Dan Eichenberger Secular cosmologists and theists alike agree: space, time, and matter came into existence from nothing. Whatever caused this had to be spaceless, timeless, and immaterial—plus unimaginably powerful and intelligent. Yet that single event only gets us to the first of four discrete explosions required to explain the world we actually observe. The Cosmological Big Bang produces the universe itself—something from nothing. Physics describes what happened afte

Over the past several years—especially since 2018—I’ve made multiple trips to Utah every year. I’ve honestly lost count of how many times I’ve been out there, but it’s starting to feel like a second home. I can understand why Brigham Young reportedly said, “This is the place.” It’s beautiful. One of the things I appreciate most about Utah is the culture of open conversation. In many places, people are told to avoid discussing politics or religion. But that’s not the case in U

This last weekend I participated in a three-on-three debate with Latter-day Saints (formerly known as “Mormons”) in Las Vegas. Micah Kunkle, Marcus Bratton, and I had a friendly—but intense—conversation with Travis, Matt, and Haley. Honestly, my favorite part wasn’t the debate itself—it was forming genuine friendships with them. (The full debate will be released this Saturday on The Way with Brian Davila). One of their contentions was that their view of the Godhead “makes mor

A Note to the Reader What follows are my original speaking notes from a panel discussion at the Evangelical Philosophical Society (EPS) regional meeting in Georgia (March, 2026). I had the privilege of joining Joshua Ryan Farris and Chad McIntosh to engage Farris’s work in Deconditioning Naturalism , especially his arguments regarding consciousness, the soul, and the limits of a purely naturalistic framework. In my portion of the panel, I zeroed in on a specific pressure poin

While leading a recent MAVEN immersive experience in Utah, I had the pleasure of meeting a few philosophically inclined young men from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To be candid, that was a breath of fresh air. This is because far too often, conversations between Christians and Latter-day Saints remain at a surface level—talking past one another rather than reasoning together (Isaiah 1:18). But these young men were different. They were thoughtful, sharp, an

I was inspired to write this one after watching this video “The Andromeda Paradox Even Confuses Physicists.” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Rx6ePSFdk ). You can watch the video for a longer explanation, but the gist is that relativity and the speed of light cause something odd. If you are standing still while I am running past you, and we both observe the Andromeda Galaxy while I pass you, we will observe it in different states. Andromeda is about 1.5 million light years

There is a very common type of fallacious reasoning that I have termed arguing from the extremes. Once you see this, you’ll notice that it’s everywhere in our society and especially political discourse. Roughly speaking it’s the idea that one or an extremely small number of counter examples disproves a whole theory. This is simply not how to do good reasoning. If you see x follow y 1,000 times you will rightly conclude that there is some type of causal link between x and

I’m inspired to write this both for the accusations of “straw manning” that came from Tim's and my essay at the 2025 EPS, and due to examples that I have seen. While no one accused me of this directly (all the interactions I had with people in relation to the essay were positive, even when they were pushing back), I heard through the grapevine that some people were complaining that Tim and I were straw manning Calvinists and other divine determinists. Additionally, I did see

The apostle Paul once rebuked the Galatian church with a startling question: “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?” (Galatians 3:1) Paul was not suggesting that the Galatians had lost their free will or become metaphysical puppets. Quite the opposite. He was holding them responsible for allowing deception to take root—for failing to guard their minds against ideas that undermined truth and freedom. In other words, Paul assumed that being deceived does not eliminate res

On Christmas Eve, as I was walking into the gym, I paused for a brief moment and posted something on social media that had been on my mind: "God > anything else that could possibly be conceived." Many people immediately recognized this as a hat tip to Anselm’s famous definition of God: "that than which nothing greater can be conceived." Others—almost certainly many who have never heard of Anselm—still understood it intuitively and seemed to appreciate it. I went to bed that n

I recently read Galileo's Error: Foundation for a New Science of Consciousness by Philip Goff. I actually listened to it on Audible over the course of four days (mostly while walking my dog or working out). After listening to the first few chapters I decided to purchase the hard copy in order to read it more carefully. I had no idea what to expect when I started listening to Goff's book narrated by Maxwell Caulfield. I did not know what worldview Goff held or what position

"I’ve decided that Sapolsky embodies a paradox: when you decide free will does not exist because you have weighed arguments for and against it, you prove free will exists." - John Horgan (the science writer) Horgan is exactly right. These words are in response to neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky, who argues against free will in his new book, Determined . But, Sapolsky's book does not demonstrate that humans never possess the libertarian freedom to think. As Horgan notes in F

Challenge For those who like the moral argument, here are my five challenges (framed as questions) for you. 1. Why think that moral realism is true? 2. Why think that moral facts/obligations need an explanation? 3. Why think that God would be able to explain the existence of moral facts/obligations? 4. What about non-theistic accounts of morality? 5. Can you show that theism surpasses all non-theistic accounts of morality as an explanation for morality? I expect that yo

Challenge Here's a challenge for those who think that libertarian free will is necessary for rationality and/or knowledge (I am defining rationality as believing some proposition justifiably and I am defining knowledge as justified true belief). Imagine two worlds: world A and world B. In both worlds, John believes the same proposition on the basis of the same evidence. Moreover, in both worlds, that proposition is true. In world A, John used his libertarian free will to bel

The following is a recent conversation I had with a Calvinist. I enjoyed it because it was not emotionally charged even though he was asking questions in an effort to refute my arguments against Calvinistic determinism. His questions were thoughtful and allowed for clarification from which all can benefit. Please enjoy the following exchange (for clarity, the Calvinist's words are in blue. My words are in black): Calvinist : Dr. Stratton, you have said this many times, but h

Objection Dear Dr. Stratton, I saw the video An Epistemological Case Against Calvinism right when it came out. And I was surprised that the whole video you assumed that a determinist has to argue for general reliability. I can simply reject this premise and argue that God is absolutely reliable. Seems to me that you have to argue for a specific sense of deception. But in the coloquial sense, deception often refers to some form of coercive act. And calvinists deny coercion, s

One of my favorite arguments for the existence of God is known as the Moral Argument (made famous by William Lane Craig). I believe that it is sound and forceful. The deductive syllogism is typically stated as follows: If God does not exist, then objective moral values and duties do not exist. Objective moral values and duties do exist. Therefore, God exists. Click here to watch a short video of how William Lane Craig defends the premises of this argument. Click here to wat

An outspoken proponent of Calvinism, exhaustive divine determinism, and compatibilism, recently objected to my claim that the Held Hostage Objection was a silly reason to be a compatibilist (see, What If Science Proves Determinism ). In summary, my response to this so-called "hostage crisis" is threefold: Science is the wrong tool for the job. The Free-Thinking Argument and the Arguments from Reason provide reasons to reject potential ignorant claims of scientists. If one i